"And you didn't get his number? Allison!"

"Lydia, lay off. She's only been in France for a few weeks."

"Exactly! Weeks! And I haven't gotten one juicy story about a French boy. How am I supposed to live vicariously through you if you don't go anywhere?"

"You know, you're so right. I'll do better, Lydia. So sorry."

Allison smiled at her laptop screen, staring at the faces of her two best friends. It was the first time the three of them had gotten the chance to video chat together since she'd left—though why Sadie and Lydia were using different computers when they lived in the same house was a mystery to her.

She wished that she could say that she enjoyed being in France—that every day was an adventure and she was learning to love life again. She and her father had moved to get away from all of their bad memories, and to relearn how to be themselves. But as it turned out, moving to a different country didn't fill the gaping hole she felt in her chest. It didn't change the fact that she had lost her mother. It didn't even change her bad break up.

Her dad had called in a few favors and secured them an apartment right on the edge of Nice. It was a beautiful city, but one Allison had only really seen from the window. Besides one trip to the supermarket, and one to the library, she'd barely left her room.

But she didn't want to tell her friends that. So she let Lydia continue harassing her about French boys.

"Lydia does not need to live vicariously through anyone," said Sadie. She rolled her eyes, folding one of the T-shirts from the laundry basket next to her. "It's not like she hasn't been on any dates this summer."

"Excuse me, I have not been on any dates."

"They're not not dates just because you refuse to call them dates."

"I've been…hanging out with people, yes. But I have not been on any dates."

"What exactly is the different between hanging out with people and dating them?"

Lydia grinned. "Hanging out is what you do when you know you're not looking for a commitment."

"Lydia," Allison laughed, "that's not hanging out. That's hooking up."

This difference didn't seem to bother Lydia though, as she simply waved her hand at the semantics.

Sadie shook her head as she walked a stack of shirts to her dresser. "Allison, you know she's already gotten three phone numbers this week? Just this week!"

"Four," Lydia said with a shrug. "I told you that you should have come to the mall with me."

"No, Sadie doesn't need phone numbers," Allison said with a smirk. "She's got a boyfriend."

Lydia gasped comically, while Sadie threw a pair of shorts at her laptop screen.

"Alright, alright, I get it. I'm the weird taken one now."

"Seriously," Lydia sighed. "Sadie has a boyfriend, and I do not. It's like I'm in the Twilight Zone."

"What do you mean? Sadie was still dating Stiles when you'd broken up with…"

"Oh come on!" Sadie's voice was loud as she cut Allison off. "It's not that weird. Besides, you're always the one pushing me to spend more time with him. You're not allowed to turn around and tell me I'm being a boring relationship girl when I get yelled at every night I stay home."

"Well I wouldn't have to yell at you if you would actually do something with your boyfriend."

"I'll do things with my boyfriend in my own time, thank you."

Allison raised an eyebrow as Lydia threw her hands in the air. "Wait, Lydia. When she says 'do things in her own time' does that mean…?"

"Why yes, Ally. It means that even though Sadie's got a boyfriend, she's the one who seems to be living vicariously through other people."

"No, I am not," said Sadie firmly. "I'm not pushing you guys out the door and into relationships or hook ups or anything. I'm just happy where I am right now, thank you. Can we change the subject?"

"No. Allison, do you know how long Sadie and Stiles have been dating?"

"Um, I don't know. What is it now? Like, four months?"

"Yes. It's exactly like four months. And apparently they have not even broached the subject of having sex."

"You make it sound like this huge thing! I'm telling you, it just hasn't come up!"

"Sadie, I've met your boyfriend. Trust me, it has come up."

Allison did her best not to giggle as Sadie's face screwed up in disgust.

"Lydia, I don't think it's that bad. I mean, Scott and I didn't have sex at first either. Maybe they just don't want to rush into it."

Sadie brandished a hand at the screen. "Thank you, Allison!"

Lydia waved them off. "You'd still had sex before four months. Sadie's just being a nervous prude."

"I am not! Look I just… We're trying to make things different now. Everyone's been so caught up in the kanima stuff that I told Stiles I kind of wanted to start from scratch. So instead of it being like we've dated four months, it's sort of like we've only been dating one."

"So you guys are just starting over?" Allison asked sadly. "As if nothing ever happened between you guys?"

"You can't erase that kind of history," said Lydia, shaking her head.

"No, we're not trying to erase anything. It's more like…I don't know. Rebuilding, I guess."

Lydia snorted at this, and leaned back in her chair. "Well yeah, after that phone stunt he pulled I'm not surprised."

"Phone stunt? What phone stunt?"

To Allison's surprise, both Sadie and Lydia froze. She watched as they each glanced at their computer screens, gauging the other's reactions. It was Lydia who spoke first.

"Oh, it's—it's nothing. I guess we didn't get a chance to tell you before you went all European Vacation."

She was smiling, but Allison could tell she was nervous. Sadie, on the other hand, wasn't even looking at the camera. She'd returned to folding her laundry with unique focus and concentration.

"Tell me what?" Allison asked suspiciously.

Lydia glanced at the corner of the screen, where Sadie gave a small shrug.

"Um… Well the night of the lacrosse finals, right before we all headed over to the warehouse, Sadie was over at Stiles's place. And I was calling her and calling her and she wouldn't pick up. And obviously I knew she wasn't having sex with him, which would have been a decent excuse but, uh… I went over there to find her, and I realized that she'd fallen asleep, and she didn't wake up because Stiles had turned her phone off."

"Oh my God, really?" Allison gaped at her screen. "Why would he do that? Especially with everything that was going on?"

"Well, that's exactly why he did it. There was too much going on, and he said he didn't want her getting involved."

"It's a little late for that, I think," said Allison. "God, that's so stupid."

"It wasn't stupid."

Sadie's voice was surprisingly even as she spoke. She still wasn't looking at her laptop.

"Yeah, but Sadie…"

"It was wrong, and I'm still mad at him, but it wasn't stupid. He didn't want me to get hurt, because he knows I can't heal. Even I forget that sometimes."

"I know, but it's not like you can't take care of yourself," Allison argued. "I can understand being worried, but that's just…"

"Paranoid?"

Allison stopped herself. She shook her head.

"No. I guess I was just gonna say it was…pretty cautious of him."

Sadie nodded, still not looking at the screen. "Well he'd also just gotten the shit beat out of him by a pack of hunters, so yeah. I guess he was being cautious."

It felt as though the breath had been sucked out of her chest.

Allison stared at her laptop, watching as Sadie continued to fold her laundry, as Lydia suddenly became very interested in straightening the books on her desk.

"Sadie, I'm so sorry about what happened to Stiles. But I swear, I didn't know anything about that. All Gerard told me was that I should go after Derek's pack, and he would try and convince Scott to talk. If I'd known he was going to go after Stiles… I wouldn't have let that happen. You have to know that."

Sadie sighed, carding her hands through her hair and then resting them on her hips. She stared down into her laundry basket and nodded sullenly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know, Ally."

But something in her voice said that she wasn't quite ready to believe her.

Allison leaned back in her chair as Lydia called for a subject change, rushing into a rant about how she was beginning to look into colleges who might accept her additional credits towards a degree. Sadie talked about all of Lydia's theoretical work, and Allison laughed as she recounted how it had gotten her into trouble with the math department. And on the surface, it was all normal.

At the same time, Allison knew it wasn't.

She hadn't found out about what happened to Stiles until it was too late. Scott had filled her in on all the details her family hadn't wanted her to know—how the hunters had grabbed Stiles after the championship game, how Sadie had completely broken down, how Gerard had meant it as a message to them. Tell him where Derek was, or his friends would die.

Scott had promised that he believed in her the whole time, and Allison trusted him. His honesty and his loyalty were two of the things that made it so hard to let him go. But that loyalty also tied him to Sadie. It was only after begging repeatedly that he'd admitted what she'd said about the situation.

"You heard her threaten to murder me if I got in her way. I'm honestly not sure I'd put anything past her right now."

It'd been naïve of her to think that they could just leave that in the past. Allison didn't like thinking about that dark part of herself—or just how dark she'd gotten. But it still haunted her at night. She'd shot Boyd. She'd shot Erica. She'd stabbed Isaac until he didn't even have the strength to stand. And she'd shoved her best friend into a wall, held an arrow to her throat, and then threatened to kill her.

Allison knew, deep down, that she didn't deserve anyone's forgiveness. She certainly didn't deserve it this quickly. How could she blame Sadie for thinking she'd tortured Stiles when she'd tortured so many other people in her life?

She couldn't. But it didn't make her feel any less sick with guilt.

No one brought up the previous school year for the rest of the conversation. Lydia kept them focused on the present and the future—what Allison was doing in France, what Sadie was doing at work, when they would all be together again. Occasionally, Lydia would slip in another remark about Sadie's virginity, and Sadie would balk and squawk like a bird. Allison always came to her defense. It was the least she could do, amusing as she found Lydia's badgering.

They were halfway through a conversation about what movies were coming out when Sadie finished folding her last T-shirt. She stopped and stared down into her laundry basket, so still that Allison actually thought her feed had frozen. But then Sadie cleared her throat.

"Hey Lydia, did you throw any of your things in with my laundry?"

"Hm, no. Why do you ask?"

Sadie fished out a pair of underwear, red and lacy, and held them at arms' length. "Because I've never seen these before, and I'm really hoping they're not my mom's."

Allison giggled, and Lydia beamed.

"Oh no! I got those for you!"

"All of it?" Sadie asked, peering back down into the laundry basket. "Why…Why would you do that?"

"Well you're going to need something when you and Stiles decide to seal the deal. I know we got you some nice bras, but sex is a totally different ball game. I decided you needed a few matching sets for the occasion."

"Yeah, that's great. Thanks a bunch. What did you do with the rest of my underwear?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Sadie glared at the laptop screen. She picked up the basket of laundry and flipped it upside down, dumping the contents onto her bed. Out fell several items of lace, all in different colors—blacks and reds and purples and blues, but none of them seeming very substantial.

If Sadie's face hadn't been funny enough, the reveal had done the ticket.

Allison burst out laughing, and Lydia just shrugged.

"Oh. Well that's unfortunate."

"Lydia, what the hell did you do with my real underwear?"

"Excuse me, that is all very real underwear. And you'll be wearing it until I see some results."

"This—This is crazy, Lydia! I'm not wearing all of this stuff every day! Give me back my normal clothes or I swear to God…!"

"Don't be so dramatic! It's not like I went and burned it or anything. I'm completely reasonable. You can have your period panties back when you've reached that point of your cycle."

Sadie let out a battle cry and went sprinting off of the screen, just as Lydia went running to barricade her door. But Sadie was too quick. She burst into the room and wrestled Lydia onto the bed. From what Allison could see, it looked like she was attempting to strangle Lydia with the red thong.

Allison was still laughing, so hard that it was hard for her to sit upright. It was a nice feeling, being able to laugh loudly and free. She wasn't sure she could remember the last time she had. It hadn't been for weeks, surely. Not since before her mother had died.

She knew earning her friends back wasn't going to be easy. There was no simply way to put the past behind them and ignore everything that had happened. But maybe Sadie was right. Maybe all of them had to start from scratch, to rebuild their trust in each other. If they started simple, and eased back into things, maybe it wouldn't be as difficult as it seemed.

Whatever it took—Allison thought as she watched Sadie and Lydia cackling on her screen—it would be worth it.